How to Delete All Emails in Outlook (Empty Folder & Sweep)

Outlook.com has two tools for clearing out email fast: Empty folder, which deletes everything in a folder, and Sweep, which deals with one sender at a time. Neither deletes permanently straight away — email moves to Deleted Items first.

Delete one or several emails

Select the messages, then select Delete above the reading pane. In a mobile browser, swipe left on a message.

Delete every email in a folder

1. Go to the folder you want to clear.
2. Select the check box above the message list.
3. Select Empty folder. The email moves to Deleted Items.

If Focused Inbox is on, empty Focused and Other separately. On a phone browser: press and hold a message, tap Select All, then tap the trash icon.

Use Sweep to clear one sender

1. Select an email from the sender you want to clean up.
2. Select Sweep on the menu bar.
3. Choose one option, then select Sweep:
   • delete all incoming email from that sender,
   • keep only the latest email, or
   • delete email older than 10 days.

Sweep isn’t available in Junk Email, Drafts, Sent Items or Deleted Items, and Sweep rules run once a day. Microsoft lists it for Outlook.com, Outlook on the web and new Outlook for Windows — not classic Outlook, where you’d use rules instead.

Don’t want their email at all? Block the sender — and treat suspicious senders with care: the email security hub explains what to check.

Delete permanently

1. Open Deleted Items and select Empty folder.
2. Deleted email then moves to recoverable items. To erase it for good, select Recover items deleted from this folder at the top of the list, then Empty folder.

Microsoft’s warning: items removed from recoverable items are permanently deleted and can’t be restored.

Folders that clear themselves

• Deleted Items — Outlook.com deletes email there automatically after 30 days.
• Junk Email — kept for 10 days, then deleted.

So you don’t need to empty these by hand unless you want something gone sooner. Just don’t use either folder to store email you want to keep.

If a big delete stalls

• Large deletions take a while — keep the browser open.
• If it fails, try a smaller batch.
• If deleted email reappears, try again later.

Deleted too much? You have time — see recovering deleted Outlook email. Need space rather than a clean inbox? Archive keeps email out of the way without deleting it, and Outlook storage full covers what actually frees space.